Canister vacuum cleaners are well known in the art in which a canister unit having a vacuum motor plugged into house current draws a vacuum through a flexible hose and handle unit manipulated by the user to vacuum desired areas of the floor. When used on carpeted areas and the like, the handle is commonly attached to a rolling unit which has electrically driven beater bars and spiral brushes which loosen dirt from the carpet so that it may be more easily picked up by the force of the vacuum. Power is supplied to the beater by an electrical connection extending from the canister through the hose and handle.
Prior art structures such as shown in Holden U.S. Pat. No. 3,928,715 and Pauler et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,034,085 have provided simultaneous mechanical and electrical connections between flexible vacuum hoses and a terminal in a hose cuff or handle. Also, prior art structures have provided strain relief for the electrical connection of the hose to the cuff by mechanically securing the cuff to the exterior of the hose with a separate mechanical connection of the hose wire to the cuff (see, for example, Dunn U.S. Pat. No 4,162,370 and Minton U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,535). These structures do not, however, facilitate certainty of location of the wire connection, and in addition, complicate manufacture and maintenance of the vacuum cleaner.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.